How's your week been?

Whirlwind of a week! Spent it with my in-laws. We ran a race this weekend, and I wore my pride socks in public for the first time. The person in front of me at the starting line was wearing a progress pride flag as a cape, and I said "thank you". My sister-in-law clued in and was asking my spouse what was going on while they ran, so after I set a new PR I came out to her. "Ok, as long as you're happy" was almost immediately followed by the gobsmacked " omg, you must be really upset with things right now". So I guess that's a win. It was nice being in a public place where I didn't constantly hear hateful gibberish and saw people openly being themselves (including employees; those butterfly earrings were gorgeous!) so a good trip in all. My spouse's parents still don't know, though. One week at a time!

On another note, nobody told me voice training was going to be this bad. Yes, I followed the guides and the videos. I also see a professional. The LPR damage is making it very difficult, though!

yes, voice training is so difficult, lol - but honestly somewhere around 6 - 8 months of intensive practice I managed to break through and it got a lot easier - I think it's harder to get my brain to actually coordinate a feminine voice at first than it is later to habituate a feminine voice with practice, so basically it gets easier over time, just very slowly. Still, a year goes by and it's a radically different place than where you started.

I fully expected to not having a passing voice maybe ever, or maybe not without 5+ years of training. I was surprised when my voice therapist had nothing left to help me with and I graduated within a year, and when I started to pass on the phone and in public with ease. It's still not real to me, and my voice is one of my greatest sources of dysphoria - but my goals were to pass with a natural sounding female voice, not necessarily to resolve voice dysphoria (which might require more extreme feminization, ironically to the point where it comes across as too young or out of place to most people's ears - dysphoria is a brain worm that distorts perception).

I've been on vacation for the past week and was too scared to bring my meds so I've been a mixed bag of being miserable and having a good time. 😖🫠

I'm coming back home today though so I'm excited to continue my meds again. 😺

Accidentally took my E 7 hours late and went to bed crying, so that was fun. Made especially hard by my bf being in another state, but I'm excited he's coming home today.

Oh, my. I think I'm getting the girl-horny already. Somebody please send help... no, wait, lesbians. Send lesbians.

Seriously, though, my wife's basically asexual and my original solo playbook is not going to cut the mustard. What do?

haha, magic wand with a cord (not battery) and an amp speed controller

EDIT: I found orgasms became a lot more mental / emotional for me, so exploring literary erotica or other means of supportive fantasies might help? Especially helpful to look for erotica or material made for women and/or that centers women's pleasure.
- Huh. I wonder if that was a sign horny teenage me wasn't aware of; always had a preference for written porn (Fanfiction dot net, you served me well!); that might've been due to it actually loading on the browser of my DSi tho xD
- Aha, yes, there's always that :3
  
  I like the idea of literary erotica. Certainly visual media doesn't really do anything for me any more, which was pretty surprising.

First week of hrt has done wonders for my mental health, and removed any lingering doubts I hadn't been able to shake yet.

In other news, started a new campaign with my rpg group using Masks: A New Generation. It is a blast, and I highly recommend it.

congrats on starting HRT!! ✨

My first week was similarly instructive - I think day 3 after my first injection I was really unexpectedly happy (at one point I literally laid down and just sat with the feelings, enjoying a euphoric body buzz), and my doctor had originally intended for me to inject like every 14 days, but estradiol valerate has a half-life of 3.5 days so by day 4 - 5 I felt like I needed another injection and by day 6 I started to return to pre-HRT mental symptoms, and by day 8 my mental health had so deteriorated and I was so desperate to inject that I reached out to my endocrinologist to make sure it was OK to inject more frequently, and lo and behold, the injection cleared up my symptoms.

Makes me so excited for you, I'm glad you're getting the care you need 💖

Got a new concealed carry firearm before the prices soar so that brings me some comfort with these emboldened magats walking amongst us

ha, like boats passing in the night, I just got rid of mine 😝

just scheduled the hotel for my upcoming vaginoplasty, I think it's two months away now

Electrolysis is painful! I use a 20% lidocaine BLT cream from a compounding pharmacy and apply it hours before the appointment, usually around 40 - 45 minutes into the session it starts to get what I would consider "too painful". At first I thought it was because the lidocaine was wearing off, and the pharmacist switched from 20% lidocaine to 20% benzocaine thinking it would help it last longer, but it made absolutely no difference, I get around the same pain around the same time. So now I wonder if it's due to the accumulation of damage and pain over the session, esp. as she begins to cluster the places the hairs are removed.

Either way, it makes me wish lidocaine injections were more common - this pain is unnecessary, more a consequence of falling through the cracks of the local government and medical establishment which just hasn't prioritized the legal pathways and training programs that would enable lidocaine injections for these areas and in these contexts. You can get your mouth numbed for dental work, for example (and you can get trained and certified to numb patients for dental procedures), but for electrolysis it's just not an option here.

I remember reading somewhere about somebody having good results from applying the cream, than putting a layer of plastic wrap overtop it, and slowly peeling away the layer as they went.

No idea if it works or not; I'm of that lucky genetic disposition that gets fuck all out of pain medications; it took 4-5 separate injections in several spots to numb a big toe enough for then to pull out an ingrown toenail. When i got my wisdom teeth removed, I didn't even bother with the percocet i got after the first day, since it didn't do much for me and i needed to operate machinery.
- Yes, apparently they call covering with plastic wrap "occlusion" - it helps prevent the cream from dehydrating and gives more opportunity for it to absorb into the skin. I occlude even when I'm not supposed to (e.g. the compounding pharmacy explicitly says not to occlude their cream), and it is one of the ways people end up with enough lidocaine in their blood stream that they die from it.
  
  There were two women in the U.S. who put lidocaine on their legs for a laser session and used plastic wrap, and they died. I, however, have survived putting plastic wrap on my legs - I just break up my sessions into two parts, upper and lower legs, so I can reduce the surface area exposed to lidocaine. I'm also larger, so maybe my body can handle larger doses, and I intentionally eat a meal which may or may not help for various reasons (just speculation on my part).
  
  I'm sorry you don't benefit from anaesthetic and pain meds - I'm surprised it's both since opioids work differently than lidocaine as I understand it, but either way that is awful - are you able to get general anaesthetic, do you know? I can't imagine needing surgery in those circumstances ...
Sounds unpleasant (I still haven't started). Hope you get everything sorted in time! Good luck.

I got some lidocaine cream for my face for laser, but didn't use it in the end. They said not to use it on genitals, but I guess it works OK then?
- My laser place also tells me not to apply any creams or product, etc. - it's a liability issue for them, and it is a real risk. However, the pain from laser is so bad that I would rather take the risk by applying the cream and just doing my due diligence by thoroughly cleaning the skin right before the appointment (I walk into the place, go to the bathroom, use paper towel to wipe off all the excess cream, then I wet a rag and get it all soapy and then scrub the area well, then using a clean towel to wipe the skin completely clean - then right before, the laser techs use alcohol wipes as a last measure - so far, over a year of doing this, I've had no complications or issues).
  
  The 20% cream is expensive and it comes in very small amounts, so I only use it on the genitals and my face. For other areas I just settle for a grey-market South Korean 10% lidocaine cream called Anesten, which mostly works - at least enough that I'm able to sleep the night before appointments and I don't have too much anxiety about it.
  
  Normal lidocaine creams have 5% btw, I found them unhelpful (practically no better than not using it).

My partner's sick, so it's not been great

I have to pause my hrt for a few months and I’m feeling anxious about losing progress. But hopefully I can get on prog on the other side.

oh no, I don't know if it's OK to ask, but I was wondering why you have to pause for a few months - that would ruin me, lol